Summer Reading For the Small Business Owner

Use your summer down time to read some of these business-themed pieces.

Whether you’re a first-time entrepreneur or a long-time small business owner, the summer can be a time for some rest and relaxation with an eye towards re-charging your batteries.

If you can get some downtime on your schedule, here are some reading ideas for improving your business acumen and finding your inspiration.

How to Change Your Business Name
The U.S. Small Business Administration put out this explainer several years ago as a primer for how to go about changing your business name should the need arise. It may be something to pursue if you are seeing changes in your industry and you want to head in a new direction.

How to Find an EIN
This is another article from the SBA that talks about how to find an EIN. If you are starting a new business, then creating an EIN should be near the top of your to-do list. This article explains who needs one, why and how to get it.

How Self-Service Technology is Modernizing Restaurants
Ordering a burger from a human cashier may soon become a thing of the past. Find out how modern restaurants are using technology to boost earnings and increase customer satisfaction.

Shoe Dog by Phil Knight
Nike is a very large company but did you know that the business started with Phil Knight selling shoes out of the trunk of his car at track events? Everyone started somewhere and Knight talks candidly in this book about his humble beginnings, his troubles with bankers and the eventual rise to the top of the sports apparel world.

Dream Teams: Working Together Without Falling Apart by Shane Snow
Snow, a journalist and entrepreneur, explores the psychology, history and neuroscience behind high functioning teams. He explores examples as diverse as the Wu Tang Clan and the Soviet Olympic hockey team to dig up lessons that can be applied to business.

Principals: Life and Work by Ray Diallo
Diallo, one of the world’s most successful investors and entrepreneurs, shares the ‘principals’ that he used to build the culture at his hedge fund over the last 40 years. Along the way, the firm became the fifth most-important private firm in the United States, according to Forbes magazine. The book has been called a ‘wonderful opportunity’ to get inside the mind of a man often referred to as the ‘Steve Jobs of investing.’